


Hair dressing booth

by National_quinnspiration



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Gen, body image issues, medication mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:57:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6450907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/National_quinnspiration/pseuds/National_quinnspiration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dib's feeling kind of down about his looks. Zim helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hair dressing booth

**Author's Note:**

> idk i was having a bad body image day and my subconscious came to me with this zim dream. nice. this was supposed to be zadf but ended up kinda romancey. nothing explicit, just zim having feelings.

Dib sniffs as he switches tabs. It was the middle of winter and he definitely did not catch a cold when he fell into sewage three days ago.

He sneezes abruptly, a small clump of mucus landing on his screen. Okay, maybe he had a  _ mild  _ cold for falling in the sewer.

It had been unavoidable. He had been leaning on a ledge to get a better look at some suspicious tracks when he had lost balance. The resounding splash has also washed away the footprints. Meaning he was back to square one for this investigation.

Dib was 70% sure there were a group of ‘extinct’ cave bears living in the city south sewer system. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), no one believed him. He had yet to gather any proof. Days of searching had turned up nothing. Not to mention he had to keep deleting the school's messages about his absence before his dad saw them.

So he’d returned to the first stage of paranormal investigation; research.

He reads a few lines of the article in front of him. Then he realizes he wasn’t focusing on it at all and had no idea what he just read. Dib sighs, pushing his glasses up with the back of his hand so he can rub the corners of his eyes.

A couple of days ago he had be so excited about this, but now he felt like crap. He knew soon Gaz was going to get pissed enough about him missing school to drag him back herself.

He gives up on the article. Maybe he could find a documentary on cave bears.

He pauses to take some painkillers for his lack of sleep headache. And then his meds as an afterthought. He can’t remember the last time he took them, which isn’t great.

He stares down at his fingers. There’s grime and a small amount of blood still caked under his nails. One fingernail broke quite fantastically yesterday. He’s yet to clean it up, so the rough edges of it catch on his skin every time he touches his face.

Dib’s about to give up and spent the rest of the day wallowing in bed when an alert message pops up on his computer screen. It’s from the program he set up to look for keywords in police transmissions.

Dib will investigate anything supernatural but few legitimate sightings ever got to the police. The main reason for the program was to keep track on Zim. Police scanners were one of the best ways. Aside from following him obsessively and/or Zim outright bragging to him about it. Any time the alien does anything weird at least three people call the cops. The cops who are useless and easy for aliens to abduct, meaning zim never gets caught.

Dib likes to keep track of Zim when he’s working on other protects. Zim was far more destructive than anything else on his radar.

Just last week Zim’s huge ‘peanut butter death plan’ had failed. Dib figured he had a few days of Zim sulking about it before he would try anything again. He was actually acting up right on schedule.

Dib listened to the recorded radio message. A ‘small green child’ was throwing rocks at people downtown.

He could be there in less than twenty minutes.

He pulls his coat out from under a pile of his other discarded clothes and a collection of unsorted notes. He grabs his ‘Zim bag’. It’s just his normal paranormal investigation bag without a spray bottle holy water. No need to waste it on something it doesn’t work on.

He’s on his way out of his bedroom when he catches sight of himself in the mirror and stops short. His hair is unreasonable, as usual, but today it’s also an utter mess. His scythe has three more kinks in it than normal and is a skew to the right. Dib runs his finger through it, trying to push it upright but it flops back lopsided. It’s made worse by the fact that he hasn’t washed it in . . . a while. There’s a few knotted clumps at the back and it frizzes in an unflattering manner around his hairline.

His face isn’t much better. He’s recently had another outbreak of acne. Pimples and blackheads litter his cheeks and jaw. He’s squeezed at some of them, which just left him red and blotchy. There’s bags under his eyes, a mysterious brown stain on his collar and his lips are dry and peeling.

Also he hasn’t washed any of the clothes he’s wearing in more than a week.

He looks gross, to match how he feels. His insecurities well up and he has to look away from the mirror. He doesn't even care that much about his appearance. There are far more interesting things to hold his concern. But he doesn’t look nice and it’s just making him feel worse.

It’s not like he has time to do anything about it before he leaves. He wouldn’t do much about it even if he had the time.

As it is the self-loathing is enough to take him to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. There’s another mirror in the bathroom and he catches himself picking at the scabs on the side of his face.

Dib sighs again. He leans his forehead against the mirror and stares dejectedly into his own eyes.

It’s not like it matters, he reasons with himself. You don’t need to clean or fashionable to be a great paranormal investigator. And you don’t need to look good to stop Zim from levelling a city block.

Zim who was throwing rocks at random pedestrians.

Dib smirked, refocused now. Zim distracted him from everything else, so Dib’s sure stopping Zim will take his mind of his moping.

Dib races down the stairs and slides back into his boot that he abandoned at the door late last night. There’s light rain when he steps outside his house. The rain waters down the few inches of snow that fell last night.

He doesn’t have a hood but he flips his collar up by his ears and power walks the six blocks to the nearest subway station.

Dib’s going to need new boots soon, he’s grown, his toes pressing up against the insides. There’s a couple of tiny holes through which the ground slush seeps through, numbing his feet.

He rides four stops on a muggy, empty subway train. There isn’t as much people around as usual. He doesn’t know what day it is but it might be Sunday, which would explain that, and why Gaz has yet to nag him about school.

It could also be the weather.

It’s busier downtown, with dedicated shoppers snatching up the post-holiday deals.

The address from the police scanner is a seedy fast food restaurant. He spots where Zim is immediately. Dib can’t see the alien himself but there’s three police officers and a small crowd in front of the store. Dib can hear the yelling.

“-my civil humany right to bear arms! Rocks are arms! You can’t stop me you, useless human scum!” Zim screams.

The police officer he's yelling at steps back to wipe Zim’s spit from his face. The second is standing apprehensively behind the first, holding a baton. The third is conducting crowd control and trying to avoid interacting with Zim.  Dib doesn't blame him.

Dib weaves his way through the crowd and ends up standing next to the baton officer.

“Now, now son. No need to get upset! We just can’t have you going round hurting folks.” the first police officer is telling Zim, mistaking him for a young child. It’s a common occurrence that’s become more hilarious as Dib gotten older.

“Foolish earth enforcement! I will do as I please and you and your-” Zim pauses to glare at the crowd. “-loiting'ers will disperse from here!”

“I understand you-.” the officer try again but he's interrupted by Zim's indignant squeal when he notices Dib.

“Dib stink!” Zim points at him accusingly.

“I understand you feel-” the officer repeats. Zim throw his hand out in the man's direction so he has to step back to avoid being hit.

“Hey, Zim” Dib acknowledges him with a nod and a step forward, ignoring the police in equal amount to Zim.

The Dib looks awful, zim notices. Like a rookie soldier who’s forgotten to refill his sustenance port. His face has hollows and is few shades too pale.

Humans don’t have sustenance port. They have to manually feed themselves to maintain energy. It seems a highly inefficient method, so it makes sense that Dib might forget to refuel himself.

But Dib also has a darkening bruise of his left jaw bone which Zim knows he didn’t cause. the bruise is blue and purple and can’t be more than two days old. Zim hasn’t battled with Dib in almost a week.

Where did Dib get this injury? Was he battling someone else? Zim had approximate knowledge of what Dib did when he wasn’t fighting Zim. It was important to have knowledge about your enemies. Zim had done a lot of research on top of that to keep up with Dib, who spent an impressive amount of time spying on him.

The Dib monkey spent his time looking into all the other things humans didn’t believe in, apart from Zim. Had Dib gotten his bruise from one of the paranormals?

How dare they fight Zims enemy!

A horrible thought struck Zim. Was Dib going to replace him with another enemy? Perhaps this ‘Bigfoot’ Dib was so enamoured with?

Dib can’t just drop Zim as an enemy! He was the great Zim. He would just have to be a greater adversary than this Bigfoot. Zim will have a glorious battle with dib this day to prove his superiority. The Dib would find it much better and fight Zim always.

Zim glare at him. “Are you here to try and stop my amazing plan? Well you can’t!” he snaps.

Dib snorts.

“Uh, excuse me-” the police officer says but Zim shushes him.

“Actually I was here to stop you from throwing rocks.” Dib replies.

“What?!” Zim shrieks, offended.

“You can’t just throw rocks at people, Zim.” Dib says, eye brows high.

In response, Zim throws a rock at him.

“Hey!” Dib cries out as the rock hit his ribs. It doesn’t hurt much but the hesitant police officer gets enough motivation to intervene.

“Now that’s quite enough.” he says, reaching out and grabbing Zim’s arm.

Zim screeches, retching his hand away and flashing his teeth.

“That’s it! I’ve had enough of you!” Zim screams. He is wearing a puffer jacket over his uniform. He reaches into it and throws several bundles of money at the officer’s head. Dib blinked, eyes widening.

“Leave now!” Zim order. He tosses a few more clumps to the crowd for good measure. The onlookers dive to the ground to grab at the cash. The officers glance between themselves, nodding.

“Right then.” the officer in charge says.

“Good day, sir” and the three retreat, talking about the ‘good’ doughnut place, uptown.

Dib gapes.

“You just bribed cops.” he blurts.

Zim looks up at him, unimpressed.

“You humans will do anything for your fictional paper monies.” Zim mocks.

Dib saw the notes though, fifties and hundreds.

“Where did you get that much money?” he ask, suspicious.

“Uh, from my omazing restaurants.” Zim says, as though it’s obvious. He waves up at the store front. Dib takes a good look at it for the first time. It’s called “father dog’s discount grub”. Now that he thinks about it, Dib remembers seeing several other stores like it on his way here. Next to the name is a picture of Gir, crudely tinted purple and with a moustache.

“What?!” Dib exclaimed. “How do you have a restaurant chain?!”

Zim laughs. “It was trivially easy. With so many empty human stores lying around.”

Dib takes a moment to process this. “You can’t just take an empty store! You have to buy or rent them!”

“You mean  _ you _ can’t” Zim sneers, pointing up at him.

“It’s illegal!” Dib tells him.

“So’s stalking.” Zim cuts back.

“Not if you’re not human!”

“Yes, if you can’t prove I’m not human!” Zim grins. He and Dib both know Dib can’t prove anything. Dib has more than tried.

“Why do you even need a fast food place!?” Dib says, getting things back on topic.

“Like I said, diiiib. Humans will do anything for monies. I get their monies when they buy the foods and then I use it to rule the earth.”

“That’s actually a pretty good plan.” Dib says surprised. Well, the idea is good. The execution and surrounding logic are kind of terrible.

“I know, right” Zim says smugly.

“But it’ll never work” Dib yells.

“Nonsense.” Zim screams. “It’s a brilliant plan. It will work”

“Not if I stop you first.” Dib grins.

Zim beams right back, realizing they were at the battling point now. “You could never best one such as I!”

Dib hits him with the same rock Zim had swung at him before. Zim squawks and lunges at him. Dib weighs twice as much as Zim so he only manages to knock him onto his knees. Zim jumps back, laughing maniacally. He pulls open the door to the restaurant, fleeing inside.

Dib opens the door after him, slamming it shut after himself hard enough to break the bottom window pane. Dib looks up and gets bombarded with a packet of cheap plastic straws to the face. He grabs a soft drink cup from a nearby table and hurls it at Zim, who’s on his way over the service counter.

Dib follows him, scaling the counter far easier than Zim. The alarmed till worker tries to yell at him, “Hey, man you can’t do that.”

But Dib ignores him. Zim already clanked his way to the top of a soft serve machine. He has stopped to remove the flatforms he was wearing over his regular boots, which can’t have been easy to run in. Dib climbs up after him. He accidentally steps on the lever and leaving ice cream spilling all over the floor.

Zim has jumped off the back of the machine by the time Dib reaches the top. The alien is now skittering across the workbench below. He scares the crap out of the employee working there, as he spills the half prepared food onto the floor. She screams and starts to run out of the kitchen before slipping on soft serve and catapulting to the floor.

Dib jumps after Zim. He slides helplessly when he hits the metal bench and ploughs into the fridge. Zim’s already on top of the fridge, cackling down at Dib as he peels his face off the refrigerator. Zim’s expression changes to regret as Dib pulls himself up. He lifts up one of the ceiling panels and gallivants into the roof space.

 

Dib follows after him, careful to only put his weight on the support planks so he doesn’t fall through. Zim’s not so quick to the uptake and ends up kick a few holes through the thin panels, letting the light in from below. Zim ducks behind a venting shaft and Dib goes to chase him. Zim pops out the other side with his spider legs extended, charging right at Dib.

Dib dives to the side as Zim comes toward him, so the alien ends up going right over him. Unfortunately the place Dib dived was not stable and gave out under him. At the last minute Zim grabs a hold of Dib coat and they go plummeting on the industrial kitchen floor below.

They land next to the Girl who slipped over, who’s being comforted by the yelling till worker guy. She screams again and he tries to hit Dib with a spatula.

Zim broke half of his spider legs in the fall and he's on foot again. He takes the moment of Dib’s spatula distraction to vault toward the back exit.

Dib catches up to him quickly, dodging the other employees. He tackles the Zim out the open door into the snow. Zim struggles under him for a few seconds before pushing a handful of snow slush into Dib’s face. Zim escapes while Dibs spluttering. He charges down the back alley throwing more snow and the occasional piece of litter back at Dib. Dib laughs and follows after him.

The two carry on like that for almost half an hour. They chase each other through streets and alleys, tussling and wrestling. Both of them shrieking triumphantly at each other.

They end up on the roof of another ‘father dog’s’, three blocks from the one they started at. They stand dramatically on either side of the roof, facing each other.

Except they’re both exhausted at this point, heaving erratic breaths. Zims got the beginnings of a nasty black eye forming. Dibs got a couple of cuts on his upper right arm where he went to tackle Zim and landed in some broken glass. Zim’s legs ache and Dibs lungs are burning. It looks more like a competition of who can stay upright longest than a great nemesis showdown.

“You best give up, Diiib. There no way a puny earth larva could bet meeee.” Zim pants

“Yeah, right.” Dib yells back, only gasping a little. “Maybe if you surrender I’ll go easy on you”

There’s a pause, only punctuated by laboured breathing.

“We could take a short break?” Dib suggests.

“Yes.” Zim agrees. “It would be too easy to defeat you while you are weak and tired.” he says before having a short coughing fit. Dib rolls his eyes.

They end up down stairs inside Zim’s weird restaurant, after precariously climbing back down. Zim refuses help even if it meant he fell several feet face first into the mud. Not that it made much difference as they were both rather damp already. Luckily enough Zim had planned for weather (and Dib), and had a thorough paste bath this morning.

 

‘Father Dog’s discount grub’ was poorly furnished, cleaned and ventilated. Yet somehow, it still managed to be absurdly busy.

“Human Julia!” Zim calls as he strides into the restaurant, water dripping off him onto the ground.

“Sir!” a green haired employee smiles back from behind the counter. “I didn’t think we’d see you in here again today!”

“Yes, well change of my human plans. You know how it is!” Zim exclaims, waving one hand around vaguely. Julia nods absently, grinning.

“I will need these napkins!” Zim says, seizing the entire dispenser. “A number three from the deserts menu and something for my . . . ” and here he gestures to an awkward Dib, who’s standing behind Zim. “For my um, uh. Dib.”

Dib raises an eyebrow but Zim ignores it.

“Order something Dib, on top of the house.” he says before waltzing off across the building.

They sit at one of the booths near the front windows. The condensations so bad that the windows are foggy and weeping at the same time. The seats are cushy, though, which is nice.

Dib has a terrible coffee, which he’s devotedly shovelling sugar into, and an over sweetened attempt at a blueberry muffin. At least they're warm.

Zim’s got a bowl of what looks like sherbet. He’s not paying any attention to it, too busy moping himself up and dropping used napkins onto the floor.

Dib sips at his coffee, holding his coat sleeves between the cup and his hands to stop them getting burnt. His feet, pant legs and coat tails are all sopping but the store is warm, not even too uncomfortably so. Dib sits there drying, allowing himself a moment to rest, and even closing his eyes for a few seconds.

He opens them again to peer at Zim, who's finished with the napkins. Now he's slurping at his bowl, as though was filled with liquid instead of powder.

“Soooo.” Dib starts. “Can you eat everything here?”

Dibs always been curious about what Zim can and can’t eat.

“Pfff, of course. Why would I make a restaurant and then sell things I can’t eat. I would be like a peanut allergen human owning a giant . . . peanut house . . . thing.”  Zim says between mouthfuls.

Dib nods, making a mental note to take pictures of all the menu. Lord know this place won’t last long enough for him to get samples of everything. Dib will be surprised if it wasn’t closed down by the end of the day.

“So what’s that?” Dib asked making a small hand gesture toward Zim’s meal.

“This is normal earth human powdered sugar!” Zim says explicitly. “Mixed with normal earth ground grasshoppers.”

Dib splutters. “Grasshoppers?!”

“Yes!” Zim says defensively. “Human eat grasshoppers!”

“Well yeah, I guess some of them do.” Dib recants, fingers sifting on his coffee cup.

“And you like grasshopper?” he asks, with a touch of shyness.

Zim blinks, surprised at the softness of Dib tone but he nods anyway.

“Also eighty percent of a grasshopper is edible, while only forty percent of bovine is. The humans of this land mass have such inefficient resource management.” Zim rant, disgusted.

“Well the other parts of a cow can be used for other things.” Dib contemplates.

Zim sighs and slumps down in his seat. “Point” he pouts.

Dib smirks at his reaction until he catches a glance of his reflection on the polished table. His hair is damp and sticking to the sides of his face and he looks gross and bad. And gross. He slumps too then, but in a much less melodramatic manner. He just slides further down until he can’t see his face any more. His gross, horrible face.

Zim watches his human's face change from amused to something almost haunted. He is about to ask if the Dib is sick when a group of human teenage Girls enter his building. They cause almost as much of a commotion as Zim had.

Dib looks up as well. There’s a bunch of squealing and a few “there it is!”, “over there!” and “look! Look!” ‘s. The excited Girls seem to be herding one plain and rather nervous Girl across the restaurant. But not to the counter. They were heading over to a colourful and incredibly dubious looking, large machine.

“Automatic hair dressing booth.” Dib reads the label out loud, the pinnacle of unimpressed. “You know, if you’re stealing people's brains again, I’m going to have to end our break prematurely.” Dib reminds.

“Ppppfff. Relax Dib thing. If I was stealing brains again, there are far easier ways to do It.” it’s not the most believable claim of innocence but the Girl goes in and there’s no screaming. Dib figures he’ll do something when there’s definite evidence of nefarious involvement. Besides it seems a shame to get up in the middle of eating a blueberry muffin.

“So, why the booth, then?” Dib asks, mouthful of muffin.

“Because  **Dib** , I got tired of ugly human walking around  _ all _ day.”

Dib feels self-conscious.

“So I made a quick and easy way for them to get fashionable again.” Zim says, as though that was the obvious solution.

Dib glances over at the group of Girls who are all murmuring in reverence while their friend is still inside.

“You should give it a spin, Dib stink. That thing on your head is starting to get a life of its own.” Zim snickers at his own hilarity until he notices the Dibs reaction is not one of offence or indigence as usual.

Instead Dibs whole expression seems to sink and he’s no longer able to look Zim in the eye.

Surely the Dib thing knew he was joking. It doesn’t matter what an enemy looks like. Future slave sure, but Dib was almost an equal. He was someone to fight to the death, not to be looked at. Dib didn’t need looks, he was smart and stuff (for a human), and good at firing long range weapons. It’s not even like Dib looked that bad (for a human).

Dib, apparently, did not know Zim was joking. Zim could compare Dibs expression to his own whenever he sabotaged his own plans (not that he ever did that).

Dib shouldn’t be feeling that way over his hair. Ridiculous human.

But, apparently, he was. And Zim can’t take it back now. That would come across as weakness.

Zims trying to figure out what to say when there’s a loud ‘ding’ indicating the hair booth was done. Stupid interrupting machine.

There’s a whoosh and the Girl steps out, transformed. Zim isn’t surprised but Dibs mouth falls open.

The Girl is smiling now, her hair smooth and shining, cut and styled to suit her perfectly.

“Wow.” Dib says in a wistful voice. “She actually looks nice.”

Zim turns his head away from the Girl and towards Dib again. There is a slightly terrifying grin forming on his face, not that Dib was looking to see it. He had the perfect plan to fix Dib's stupidity.

“Of course she does!” he exclaims, standing to his full height on the chair. “I designed it.” he says proudly.

The Dib glances up at him, a fragile mix of unbelieving and smirk showing through his sudden low mood.

 

“You know, Dib.” Zim says leaning over onto the table and sliding so he’s only a few inches from Dib’s face. Surprised, Dib goes to move back. He then finds he’s about as far into the seat as he can be without being absorbed into a singularity.

“I was being serious about the hair booth” Zim says, in that drawn out way he’s learnt some humans like. Dib just raises his brow.

Zim nods continuing. “Yes, just one quick spin and you’ll be back to your old intrusive, humanly self in no time”

“My what?” Dib asks, confused.

“Come on, look at you. You’re all drippy and droopy.”

If possible, the Dib creature sinks even more.

Zim slides back away, dejected at Dib not agreeing already. But Irkens do not surrender.

“Diiiib, a new hair look will be just the thing to lift your human parts.”

“My human parts? Never mind. I don’t want to know.” Dib says amazed at Zims idiocy.

“How do I know this isn’t just another trap, huh?” he asks instead, uninspired by Zim proposition.

“Look at that human thing, she’s fine, isn’t she?” Zim says alluringly. “She’s even got all her pieces still attached.”

Dib glances back at her. She now chatting excitedly with her friends and taking selfies. “She does have all her pieces.”

“Mmmhhh”

“And she does look nice.”

“Really nice” Zim agrees, wholeheartedly.

Dib sighs in defeat. “I guess it couldn’t hurt” he says, running a hand through his hair.

He pulls his wallet from his bag. “How much is it?”

“Ugh.” Zim groans and tosses him a bundle of fifties. “Humans and their terrible resource management!”

“I didn’t say- you know what never mind.” Dib says deciding it was easier to not fight. He gets up from the table and walks across the sticky floor to the hair dressing booth. The outside of it is covered with crude drawings with completely unrealistic hair styles. That didn’t fill Dib with confidence.

But it was just hair and if this goes wrong he can always just use the leftover money to buy a hat. And a tranquilizer dart gun.

He pulls open the folding door to reveal a screen and camera on one side. A basic platform seat on the other side, and a place for his feet in the middle. It looks like a large photo booth.

Dib steps in, pulling the door closed behind him. He slides one of the notes into the note slot and presses start.

The instant Dib closes the door, Zim jumps up from the table. He skips over to the maintenance panel on the far end of the hair machine. He removes it and disables the controls to the robotic arms that do the actual hair dressing part.

Inside the booth, an audio track begins playing. Dib has to laugh because for some reason Zim allowed Gir to do the voiceover for this.

“Hello and welcome to the aut-aut, uhh-.” here the tape jump cuts to edit out Gir pronunciation trouble. “The automatic hair dressing salon. It’s fully robotic, so nothing can go wrong.”

“Great.” Dib replies sarcastically.

“Now please hold still while we scan your hair”

Dib straightens up and looks directly into the camera. Eight camera go off at once from all different directions, startling him.

“Processing” Gir’s voice yells through the speakers. A small loading bar appeared and then flashes away again, replaced with a 3D model of this hair.

“Wow. That’s some hair! You’re going to need the full transformation package.”

Dib groans. “Now I’m being insulted by a voice recording of a robot.”

Above him, Zim had climbed on top of the machine and was listening intently for the right moment. He hears the recording of Gir declare that Dib need the full package. Zim already knew that, it was obvious.

Then he hears Dib say something back. Did the Dib think that Gir was actually talking to him? Zim had said he’d designed the booth. Why would Dib think that he would put Gir’s operating system in anything he designed?

In the booth, a small panel below the screen opens. Dib stares at it incredulously.

“Please take the protective eyewear” Gir’s voice rings out.

Dib lifts up the ‘protective eyewear’. They look like glasses but they don’t have frames and they’re coloured completely black. On the screen a small gif diagram showing how to put them on. It seems to involve placing them on your face.

 

Dib slips off his own glasses and puts them into his coat pocket. He put the eyewear to his face. There’s a sound like a pressure value release before the eyewear is sucking onto his face.

Dib tries to pull them off, alarmed. However, it seems the eye wear is just holding onto his face, and not as he first, thought trying to remove his eyes.

“Do not be alarmed.” Gir says.

“Too late.” Dib says, unnerved by the fact that his vision is now blocked out completely. Couldn’t Zim have made the eye wear see through?

“The eyewear will stay on until the process is finished to protect your eyes from ‘tool accidents.’”

Zim smirks hearing the message played. He unscrews the roof panel, and moves back the cluttering of wires and robotic limbs. He can see Dib below him now, replying sarcastically to Gir’s messages.

“Please your legs still and your arms by your sides.”

Dib complies, deciding it was better than to risk losing a limb.

“First stage; we wash your hair.” there’s a jerking movement. Then, Dib is being leaned back, a new free space around his head in what he assumes is a hair basin. He’s never actually had this done before but he watches t.v.

 

he just hopes the water isn’t too cold.

Zim sees the movement. He moves silently down inside the booth until he’s hovering above Dibs face. The human looked tired up close, his neck tense with the strain of holding up his head.

Zim slips a hand under Dibs head to support it. The Dib tenses even more for a split second before relaxing and Zim finds himself holding the human's head. It’s heavier than it should be, than an Irkens would be. (Probably filled with useless human things). But zim finds himself enjoying the weight of it in his hands.

Zim pulls the extendable hose tap out from the wall, turning it on and beginning his work. He adjusts the pressure and watches Dib’s hair collapse out of its erratic style.

“How the temperature?” Gir’s voice chimes in. it a redundant question. The temperature isn’t adjustable. Zim already made sure it was correct for all the humans’ skins.

“It’s nice.” Dib murmurs. He sound sincere. His lips press together to make a small ‘mmm’ noise as Dib runs his fingers over Dibs scalp. Zim ignores the warm feeling in his chest at the sound.

As Zim smooths the pre foamed shampoo through Dib, he ponders over the Irken ethicality of this. Truly, Zim could have let the machine do this. He could’ve even not pushed Dib to do this. But Dib was his enemy. His. But doing each other’s hair wasn’t a typical enemy thing. Not that Zim had hair. Ugh, this was so confusing.

 

At least touching human hair was nothing like touching antennae. Hair was just an evolutionary remnant of when they needed it from warmth. Humans don’t even use it for anything but self-identification. This was fine, nothing like touching someone’s antennae.

Dib hair is different from most of the humans he seen. It’s thick and strong and would be nice but it doesn’t seem like Dib’s been taking good care of it. It’s filled with knots and super greasy. Ew.

Zim washes out the shampoo and moves onto conditioner. zim uses his fingers to manually comb out the knots.

“So, are you seeing anyone?” Gir’s voice asks conversationally. Zim had distracted Gir by getting him to do ‘hair dressing talk’ research. This is what he’d come up with.

“You’re a recording of Gir, Gir. I’m not telling you about my love life.” Dib says indignantly.

Zim watches him with interest. He knows about love lives. It’s one of the human terms for mating activity. He didn’t think Dib had one. Such thing would only have distracted Dib from his battles. And the Dib’s obsessive hunt for the ‘paranormals’.

Most of the humans in Dib age group had already begun their disgusting search for a mate. Some looked for one prime specimen to mate for life. Others attempted to engage in the activity with as many other humans as possible. Zim found it all tedious and gag worthy. The humans have needlessly complicated social perimeters for what was executable courting behaviour.

As far as Zim knew, Dib had not received any propositions nor had he showed interest toward any of his peers. It was better that way.

“Oooh. Tell me everything!” Gir says after an embarrassingly long pause. Dib gives a soft snort through his noses and Zim know he’s rolling his eyes under the protectors.

“Go on.” Gir pipes cheerfully, the reply coming too quickly this time.

Dibs hair is now knotless and verging on straight because of the weight of the water holding it down. Zim pats it down with a piece of absorbent fabric, so the hair is no longer sopping.

“Stage two; the cut.” Gir says dramatically as the chair sits itself back up.

Zim pulls the hairdressing tools out of the grasp of the robotic limbs. As he combs through Dibs hair, Zim already knows what he’s going to do. He styles his own wigs on a regular basis, so he knows what he’s doing and has had quite a lot of practise.

Dib’s hair has gotten too long to be stylish or practical in battle. Zim trims then length and give Dib scythe a new, cleaner cut. He styles the rest of it so it fall together in small manageable tufts. Last, Zim shaves part of the back of Dibs head and a small part just above his ears. So when the upper hair is released it covers most of the shaved area. Zim left the hair just long enough that Dib can tie it back with his scythe but short enough that it won’t get in Dib’s eyes.

 

Zim stand back, making sure he didn’t miss anything before messing with the controls.

“Stage three: product.” Gir screams out. Zim runs his hands through Dib hair for the last time. He makes sure Dibs scythe kinked sharply and nothing else stood up too much.

Then Zim makes his way back out of the booth, closing the panel behind him. He dashes back to the table like nothing had happened.

He has to wait a few moments for Gir’s ‘before and after’ and ‘welcome to your new hair dreams new reality life” bits. He finds himself grinning as the machine dings.

As Dib steps out the smile on Zim's face wavers. And then returns two fold. Dib looks different again now that Zim can see his eyes. The Dib looks happy again, like himself and not some crumbly, murmuring version of it. Dib still looks like he’s lacking nurturance. Zim can probably fix that by ordering dessert.

Zim fidgets with excitement as the smirking Dib makes his way back to him.

Later, Zim will tell himself that the reason he was excited to see Dib happy was so he could remove the happiness again himself. But he doesn’t have to do that right now. Not yet.

“I told you so, pig smelly.” Zim brags. “You look good all thanks to my amazing genius.”

It’s not really a compliment if he was complimenting himself, Zim reasons. He hopes Dib notices Zim said he looked good.

“Oh, yeah.” Dib replies, sarcastic as ever as he slides back into the booth. “I definitely lost this battle.”

“Ha-ha, you could never best me, human.”

 

The two quieten for a short while, Dib snapchatting a picture of his hair to Gaz. Zim is feeling exceedingly pleased with himself. Then Dib speaks up again.

“So, tell me, do you do all the hairstyling yourself?” Dib asks, even though he already knows the answer.

Zim almost chokes on his own tongue. The Dib had known it was him all along?!

“I di- ii. I would never.” he splutters out.

“Admit it you were trying to make me feel better!” Dib accuses in triumph.

Zim can feel his face heating up. “eeeeaaawwww! You and your disgusting uh-ugh feelings. Keep me out of this.”

Dib just laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed, made me feel a lot better.


End file.
